Tears sprang to her eyes, and she exclaimed, "In the field of my heart also hath the enemy sown tares." She took up the book, and read again; then too soulful to remain quiet, she rapidly paced the chamber. Resolutely and carefully she reviewed the past, back to her first faint trembling hope. Rigorously, as in the presence of her Maker, she scanned her first departure from the narrow path; and if her earlier convictions were pungent, tenfold more intense was the agony of this her second awakening. In the solitude of his chamber, Edward thought with less elation of his successful plan. He believed that Helen would have yielded to no ordinary temptation, and felt that he had been scarcely generous to enlist her affections against her principles. His repeated, "It is but a trifle," did not satisfy him; and when he had listened hour after hour to her footfall, he could no longer restrain his inclination to soothe her emotion. In vain he assayed all the arguments, all the sophistry, which the world employs to attract the lukewarm professor. [Illustration: While He Slept His Enemy Came and Sowed Tares Among the Wheat.] "Do not seek to console me," said Helen, "for such tears are salutary, my dear brother. I have virtually said that the joys of religion are fading and unsatisfactory; I must sometimes seek for others. I have quieted more than one uneasy conscience, by throwing the influence of a professing Christian into the scale of the world. I have wandered from my Father's side to the society of his rebel subjects. And yet I have cause to mourn less for this one transgression, than for the alienation of heart, which led the way to it. Had I not fallen far, very far, from the strength and purity of my earlier love, even your pleadings could not have moved me." "But the Bible says nothing about such amusements, Helen." "Not in words, perhaps, but in effect. Put the case to your own heart, Edward. Would you have me choose for my companions those who treat you with neglect? Would you wish me to frequent places, whence I should return, careless and cold in my manner toward you? Ah, brother! I loved God once. I saw his hand in everything around me. I felt his presence perpetually, and trusted, childlike, to his protecting arm. But now I regard him less, pray less, read less, and give less." And then she revealed to her brother her beautiful experience--beautiful till she grew negligent and formal--with a truth, an earnestness, a loving simplicity, that for the first time gave him some insight into the nature of true piety. "And now, dear Edward," she said, "read to me Christ's prayer to the people, that I may feel sure that they prayed for me."